Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Cubs to Vero Beach... yeah, right.

With the Los Angeles Dodgers slated to leave Dodgertown after the 2008 Spring Training season for a new headquarters in Goodyear, Arizona, the folks in Vero Beach will be scrambling for a new tenant.

But the Chicago Cubs?

So says TCPalm columnist Russ Lemmon in this article, which he must have jotted down after waking up from some wet dream of his.

Ain't happenin'... and here's why. The Cubs are the flagship franchise of Arizona's Cactus League. They regularly are the spring attendance leaders, the top revenue producers, and with easy non stop air service between Chicago and Phoenix, have been a huge tourist draw for Windy City snowbirds. Getting to Vero Beach by air is far more cumbersome.

The Cubs will be staying put at Ho Ho Kam Park in Mesa, in my humble opinion. As for Holman Stadium in Dodgertown, they might be able to attract the Milwaukee Brewers, now based at the Maryvale Baseball park in Phoenix, or even the Cincinnati Reds, whose attempts to upgrade their venue in Sarasota have been one disaster after the next.

As for us, we've got a 2008 USRT visit to Dodgertown right on our road trip schedule. It will be a combo NCAA basketball subregional at Tampa's St. Pete Times Forum, and stops to a few baseball parks, Vero Beach being among them.